So you are going to bring out a book of your stories, said the Old Poet. I think I am, sir, said I. I'm sorry for it, said the Old Poet, for it won't have a friend in the world. When it comes to the publishing of books, people are always pessimistic, and, in my case, always right. Success, I am sufficient of a heretic to believe, matters little, but friendship a great deal. And I could as little think of sending a story friendless into the world as I would of sending a child, or horse, or dog. So "Changeling" itself I will put under the friendly hand of the Right Honorable the Lord Justice O'Connor, who will find law treated in it in a _dégagé_ manner that will surprise even him. And "The Parliament at Thebes" I dedicate to Addison and Josephine Hanan. For Bulmer and Clare Hobson, near Three-Rock Mountain, is "Delilah, Now It Was Dusk," and for Brinsley MacNamara, that splendid Irish novelist, "Wisdom Buildeth Her House." And "In Praise of Lady Margery Kyteler" for Arthur Somers Roche, in memory of a chivalrous kindness. "Reynardine" for Miss OEnone Somerville and in memory of Martin Ross--their pens were one of the lost Irish glories. "Irish" for Jeffrey Farnol--none more than he loves and understands the Ring. And I am sorry there is not a story of war and its intricacies in the collection to dedicate to my friend Lieutenant-General J. J. O'Connell. I have not by hundreds come to the end of those whom I love to think my friends; but so many of them are sportsmen that to dedicate stories to them would be like giving a two-year-old racer to a maiden and church-going lady, loading her with responsibility and embarrassment, so that-- So that the rest of the stories can go out and make friends for themselves, and if they can't, 't was surely a poor hand that wrote them. Donn Byrne. By the Cinque Ports, England. 1923. Contents Changeling The Barnacle Goose Belfasters The Keeper of the Bridge In Praise of Lady Margery Kyteler Reynardine Dramatis Personæ Wisdom Buildeth Her House The Parliament at Thebes Delilah, Now It Was Dusk A Quatrain Of Ling Tai Fu's "Irish" By Ordeal of Justice CHANGELING AND OTHER STORIES CHANGELING I To outward appearance the whole of the courtroom scene was drab, ordinary. There was the stuffy rectangle of a room, half dark in the January dusk, for all that the electric lights glowed with meager incandescence. There was the judge, in his robe, at the desk of the court. There were the jurymen, solemn as in church. There the court stenographers, bald, active as ants. There the men of the daily journals, more aloof, more judicial than the judge. There the press of morbid spectators, leaning forward like runners on the mark. There the policemen, court attendants, whatnot, relaxed of body, concentrated of eye, jealous of the dignity of the court as a house-dog of its master's home. Through the windows of the court could be seen the bulk of the Tombs, heavy, hopeless, horrible as the things whence it takes its chilly name. The case of the people _versus_ Anna Janssen for the murder of Alastair de Vries droned on. The district attorney, youngish, slim, lithe, a little sinister--the impression of a hunting-dog all over him--was examining a witness, a rat-faced man who had something of the old-time bartender or private detective about him. "It was your business, as attendant at the Oriental Garden, to see that order was kept?" "Yes, sir." "There was no semblance...